Adaptation Ventures Fund I

There are almost 2B people in the world with a disability. Together, with their supporters, they represent $18T in disposable income. Despite this, traditional venture capital has largely overlooked disability and accessible tech venture-scalable opportunities due to misunderstanding or underestimating the potential. As a result, founders at the earliest stages have found it incredibly difficult to find first-money-in at the pre-seed stage and many investors wait for them to find a lead who understands the space before they commit capital. This significantly impedes the ability for incredible new technologies and hardware to reach the disability community.

Adaptation Ventures aims to lead pre-seed rounds of funding and co-lead or follow on to seed rounds. We are sector and industry agnostic, focusing on companies that are serving various parts of the disability community. While the focus will be on technology companies, we anticipate a small percentage to be hardware companies. In a similar fashion, while B2B models are preferred, B2C models will also be considered.

The few venture capital firms in the space are focused on specific disability subsets, such as neurodiversity or future of work, and typically invest in tech companies at seed stage and beyond. This allows Adaptation to fill a large funding gap within the disability and accessible tech space. As a result, we can get meaningful allocation within the best companies and advise them at the earliest stages to significantly increase their chances of success, with clear pathways for future capital.

Adaptation’s members comprise individuals, family offices, foundations, nonprofits, and corporations. Members have a say in which companies move to diligence and they can assist with diligence. They can be as hands-on or passive as they choose.

Meetings will occur at least quarterly and consist of pitches by a minimum of 4 companies that the Managing Partners have vetted beforehand. If a company passes diligence and a decision to invest is made, the goal is to invest at least $250k in each of those companies. Members invest a minimum of $36k in the fund, consisting of three capital calls of $12k over a 3-year period. Members will be able to co-invest additional amounts in specific companies alongside the fund, if they choose.

Adaptation Ventures will also provide an educational speaker series on angel investing, accessible technology and other relevant areas to its members throughout the year. While most meetings will be held remotely, at least one in-person meeting will be held each year.

Adaptation Ventures is led by founders with highly successful startup exits and deep disability-tech expertise, who have world-class partnerships, global operations backgrounds, lived experience with disabilities, and national angel investment leadership.

Our first close is scheduled for the end of September and our first meeting in mid-October or early November. We aim not only to bring market-rate returns to our investors, but to educate the venture capital and angel communities about the disability and accessible tech startup space, showing them what incredible investment opportunities come from within it.